Drake takes trifecta

John-Paul Drake has won all three races in Round 1 of the Australian Prototype Series at Phillip Island.

‘The Joker’ took maximum points in his in his turbocharged Peugeot powered Wolf F1 Mistral and finished ahead of Terry Peovitis (Honda-powered Wolf Thunder) and Phil Hughes (Hayabusa V8 powered Radical SR8). Meanwhile Radical SR3 honours went to Peter Clare over Terry Knowles and Greg Kenny

The early leader of one race was Ricky Capo (turbo Renault Praga R1) until he was forced to pit with a blistered tyre. He return to become embroiled in a contest with Mark Laucke (Wolf GB08 Tornado/Peugeot) where contact forced him to retire.

In the meantime Hughes finished a close second to Drake while Laucke was third in front of Peter Clare (SR3XX), Peovitis, Knowles (SR3XX), Kenny (RX3RSX) and Scott Bormann in the new heavily restricted Coyote V8 engined Wolf F1 Extreme.

Capo had second for the first three laps of Race 2 until he went off the circuit, the result of contact with the local wildlife. He recovered for third behind Hughes while Clare was fourth in front of Clare, Knowles, Peovitis, Bormann and Kenny.

In the final Laucke was second ahead of Peovitis in a Wolf one-two-three. Hughes who had been struggling with an intermittent fuel pump issue in the first two races, had it fail completely, and he failed to finish. Capo didn’t start and Knowles was fourth ahead of Clare, Kenny and Bormann.

The event was a Phillip Island Auto Racing Club (PIARC) Access Meeting which had Superkarts and Supersprints. Excels also featured with around 50 cars. Ben Grice took the Trophy win over Aston Cattach and Toby Waghorn while Masters (over 40s) was taken out by Adam Bywater from Tim Rowse and David Musgrave.

Round two of the Australian Prototype Series will be at The Bend on June 10-11.